Promises
by VerelLupin
Summary: Left alone in the woods, Hansel & Gretel promise to never leave each other...but what happens when that promise becomes something it wasn't supposed to be? Some mention of incest but not...you've been warned.


**Got this idea when I read that Gretel was gonna have her own illness. I own nothing. The song is Promises by Nero**

 **Enjoy...**

* * *

"It's so beautiful." She replied twirling in the much tighter shirt. "I feel…I can't even explain this."

"You must stop this," he said gripping the waist that was much too narrow for her growing body. "You've barely touched your food."

"I can't, I won't." She pushed out of his arms,"being small, saved us. We can't get caught again."

"You know what will happen. I'm not strong enough to protect us both."

"You don't need to as long as we stay together," she said washing the blood from his hair.

"It's wrong and you know it." He said shaking free and slipping a shirt on.

"You need to join me,"she said confidently leading him to their shared bed.

 **You got me so wild.**

He meant to drink himself into oblivion at the tavern below, anything to keep at bay the desire to touch all the creamy skin she'd been displaying. He'd tried so hard to be a good brother, to be a good man but he had his limits and Gretel had been his only companion since she'd been nine and he eleven.

Somehow in the years together he'd forgotten that they would eventually grow up and that bathing and sleeping together would have to come to an end. And though his traitorous body had acted upon her nearness a few times in sleep, Hansel had never thought of acting upon those subconsciously dark thoughts.

They would have to have a discussion on what to do, caring and bandaging each other's wounds would have to be a cautious option. Otherwise it would be risking stepping into terrirory that would ostracize them if people found out, and he would never want that for Gretel.

Hours later even with all the drinking he'd done, Hansel had still ended up at the foot of their bed. His mind blurry with visions of her and he called himself a bastard for wanting to defile her like that. He was her older brother, his job was to protect her even from himself.

"You came back."

 **How can I ever deny.**

"I don't mind the floor," nineteen-year-old Hansel said quietly.

"You shouldn't mind the bed, it's nicer." Seventeen-year-old Gretel extended her hand and he took it.

He laid beside her and she curled up against him, "why where you gone so long?"

"Needed to think."

"About what?" She asked.

"This."

"You got drunk so you could think about how we sleep?"

He turned to face her, "it's more than the sleeping. It's the other stuff."

"Nothing has happened," she reassured him.

"I know that but how long til something does?"

"If something does..." she pressed her forehead against his and he took in a deep breath. "Nobody would know."

"It's wrong, Gret. I'm not supposed to want you like this." He said and turned away from her.

She sat up and turned him around, "do you love me?"

He covered his eyes with his arm, "heaven help me but I do."

"And I, you. I don't care and neither should you."

 **You got me so high.**

"I'll never leave you," he said placing a small kiss on her bare shoulder.

"I know," she replied as her hands traveled slowly up his stomach and to his still pounding heart. "I don't want to be alone, Hans."

"You always have me, Gret." He replied covering her hands with his and interlocking their fingers.

"Promise."

 **So high I cannot feel the fire.**

He was twenty-two and she was twenty and this was not the first, second or even the third time. In fact he'd lost track of exactly how many times she had touched him as a man and not a brother, but this one had to be the last.

He was falling too deeply into them and soon he wouldn't be able to let her go.

 **And you keep telling me.**

"We shouldn't do this for a while."

"Why?" she asked sliding off him.

"In the more crowded villages it will be harder to hide this." He replied caressing her hip and marveling at the beauty of her skin even with its battle scars.

"We've always managed before." She replied and tucked her back against his front while he curled his arms around her, slipping into their usual sleeping position.

"Not for a while. Okay?" She didn't answer but he knew she reluctantly agreed.

 **Telling me that you'll be sweet.**

"I got you a new jacket." He said depositing the leather coat on top of their pack of supplies.

"You were gone all night," she accused.

"I told you I'd be out. I never said when I was coming back."

"Maybe next time I'll go out too." She said angrily packing up their meager belongings.

"You agreed."

Gretel slipped the pack over her shoulder. "And you said you wouldn't leave me alone all night. I guess we both lied."

"Gret."

"We need to get going; otherwise we won't make it to the next town before dark."

 **And you'll never want to leave my side.**

It'd been a decade and a half since they'd been left in that forest with only each other for company and every year on the anniversary of their first killing, Gretel would grow sick and not be able to eat for the entirety of the day.

Hansel would play nurse and care for her but this year was worse than all the other years combined. Her body seemed unable to hold more than a few bites of food even when forced to and he knew the effects would soon be irreversible.

She knew this also and took advantage of his worry and the fact that he'd do anything to get her to eat. He allowed her to manipulate him even if it meant barely letting him out of her sight unless it was to get them supplies.

It was at these times that she usually tested his promise.

Hansel loved Gretel but the type of loving she craved on this particular night could not come from him ever again. He could not lead her back astray, he'd doom them both if he did.

 **As long as I don't break these.**

But he couldn't deny her anything, she was his to care for and he cherished taking care of her, she allowed it so rarely, and she knew it. Which was how he'd found himself once more being tugged off the floor and into her sweet smelling arms. "We promised not to, Gret."

"Just once more, Hans," she pleaded.

"This can't happen again. It's not natural." He said but reached for her anyway.

"Will you leave me?" She whispered straddling his hips and making short work of his shirt and trousers. "Will you be able to?" she asked admiring the body he'd developed from his activities as a famous witch hunter.

"I'll have to," he barely managed to say as her familiar warmth encased him. Her small hands pressed his shoulders flat to the bed to stall any further arguments, not that he had any.

"You love me," she said and he painted marks on her that would take days to fade.

His fingers pushed aside the rich brown strands that hid her eyes from him. "No one else," he said and took her mouth greedily.

She professed the same and their momentum built and grew as they moved together, their bodies as synchronized in passion as they were in battle, eventually pushing their mouths together to quiet the cries that could never be heard by anybody but them.

 **Promises, and they still feel all so wasted on myself.**

"Hold me tighter." She said tiredly but he resisted.

"Promise me, Gretel."

"I promise, Hansel. This will be the end."

He held her but after she fell asleep, Hansel left the bed for good. There was too much love tainted with lust between them, to ever be truly innocent.

 **Promises, and they still feel all so wasted on myself.**

Two years passed and she watched as he grew manlier, his body toning and reshaping with every kill while she grew more muscle, that while not unattractive, was apparently enough to keep him from touching her as before.

She began noticing that despite the declaration he'd made when they were younger, he had no problem moving on and hadn't made a single move near her since the night he'd made her promise to stop.

Gretel knew that he was a man and as such he had needs that he was no longer comfortable with her fulfilling but she had no such outlet.

And though he claimed that it was because she could get pregnant and that he was looking out for her, Gretel grew more and more worried that one day he would leave her regardless of his promises.

She became much too aware of how much her toned arms, wide hips and too large breasts called attention from every man in the village but the one she wanted. Saw how the women eyed her brother appreciatively and glanced at her in disapproval of the fitted outfits she wore. How after every battle he ended up with a woman who had the exact opposite of what he had once called her attributes.

He would wench and leave her to deal with the mayor or magistrate of the current town in need and left her little time to talk to any of the men who welcomed the famous siblings to their villages and allowing her to move forward. And when she did find someone, he'd intervene.

 **Promises, and they still feel all so wasted on myself.**

Gretel tighten the laces on her corseted top happy that they needed adjusting more often since the sickness had started with regularity. She was growing slimmer, smaller and she admired the thinner frame showcased in the glass.

Hansel commented on her change and she ate even less in celebration of getting him to pay her actual attention that didn't involve a witch.

They trained regularly and in those moments of combat, his hands would roam her body and she'd feel his response and would secretly beam with the knowledge that he still desired her even if it was over between them.

 **Promises, and they still feel all so wasted on myself.**

Another fight, another witch and Hansel hadn't even bothered going to the room, opted to go straight to the tavern in all his blood stained glory. She knew that it was the left over rush of battle that forced him to seek out companionship but it still hurt that she was not enough.

She'd tried talking to him about it but much like the subject of their parents, their earlier dalliances were off limits. She didn't want to make him angry and have him give her the silent treatment like he had the few times she'd pushed him. But she was a grown woman of six and twenty and she needed a release from the tension that was suffocating them.

 **Promises, and they still feel all so wasted on myself.**

So she risked his anger and found some company of her own. The man was blond and lanky with none of the bulkiness that Hansel carried but he suited Gretel well enough.

At least he did until he commented on how curvy she was, and reminded her of whom Hansel was not spending his time with. Angry she pushed him away from her and he almost tried to force her to finish what she'd started but a well-placed knife to the privates convinced him to make a hasty retreat.

 **You got me so wild.**

She started back to her room but hadn't made it more than a few feet before she felt everything she'd eaten force its way back up her throat.

She slid down the wall tiredly and stared up at the dark sky wondering if it was her love for Hansel that had brought this punishment upon her. She got to her feet and scrubbed at her mouth with the cleanest part of her tunic.

The room was empty and he'd no doubt be gone until morning same as always but as long as he came back, she didn't care. All she had to do was make sure he didn't know she'd been sick again, he'd ask too many questions. Questions she had no intention of answering.

 **Why should I be so surprised?**

The stomach sickness she hid from him descended on her unexpectedly in the next town and she was forced to ask for his help.

"You've been sicker lately," he muttered searching for her herbs.

"No more than usual." She replied rinsing her mouth again.

"Don't bullshit me Gretel. You've gotten skinnier too."

"I have?" She tried not to grin but failed.

"Don't look so fucking happy about it. You need to stop that shit."

"I don't do it on purpose." She snapped.

"Yeah? Then why the hell did I see you in the alley a few days ago?"

She wanted to say that she'd been with someone but she really didn't want a lecture when she was already feeling so damn miserable, so she stayed quiet.

"Gretel, tell me you aren't with child."

"I know how to take care,"she replied.

"I'd help you if you were, you know that. Don't you?" She nodded. "Then why are you sick?"

She knew that he would have done anything to pull her from her illness but he could do nothing until he understood why she did it. For that Gretel would have to explain and she was too ashamed to ever tell him the truth of it.

"I'll be fine,"she said and laid down to watch him pull the vial from his kit and inject its contents into his leg.

"Are you out?" She asked forcing herself to a sitting position despite the pain.

"I'm making more. Go back to sleep."

"Let me see." She said and pulled the bowl from his hands.

"I got it."

"Did you add the wormwood?" she said sniffing it. "It doesn't smell right."

"I said I got it."

She gingerly slid off the bed and walked over to their packs. He averted his eyes from her long legs and too short nightshirt but she didn't notice. "You forgot it. I know what I'm telling you."

"I've made it a few times too. Can't you just trust me?" He snapped yanking the plant from her hand along with the bowl.

"I trust you but if you miss one ingredient you could go into shock. Let me just make it and then you'll have enough to last while I get better!" She yelled tugging the plant back.

"Why can't you leave it!" he shouted and yanked her to him. "Why can't we just stop?"

"I don't understand." She said her voice muffled by his shoulder yet knowing that he was no longer talking about their respective illnesses.

 **You got me so high.**

"I can't stand to see you this way," he whispered. "This illness will take you from me and I can't let it. I need you."

"Then why do you not come back until dawn? Why can't you stand to look at me? Why do you sleep beneath my bed instead of sharing it like when we were children? Why do you leave me alone?"

"I'm not tempted if the night is over. I leave you for your own safety and my sanity. Because we aren't children, Gretel. I am a man and you-." He pulled back and framed her face with his hands. "You are a beautiful woman who also happens to be my sister. We've been down this path before and we cannot find our way down it again. Look what it is doing to us."

"Then let me go."

"I'm trying but with every woman I bed, I regret having ever loved you that way."

"I'm sorry I don't measure up to your whores," she said as she struggled to get out of his embrace but he wrapped his arms around her tighter.

"I regret it because I don't ever want to share you like you've been forced to share me. Just thinking of some man touching you fills me with rage that I have no right to feel. That's why I stay away, why I'm with women that are the exact opposite of you; it makes it harder to pretend they are you."

"Then stop controlling who I talk to, who can buy me a drink. Stop acting like my lover and be my brother and I will be the sister I should have been or we will end up more damaged than before."

 **Don't you see it in my eyes?**

"Can we do that? Is it possible?" He let her go and she picked the bowl and ingredients that had fallen when he'd forcibly tugged her into his arms.

"It has to be." She sat beside the fire and stirred in the missing herbs. "All this time, I thought you didn't-"

"That I didn't what?"

"That you didn't like how I looked. I thought you had lied to me all those years ago."

"It wasn't a lie. I've never been able to lie to you. You know me too damn well." Hansel knelt next to her but she didn't stop stirring. "Is that why? Is that why you eat less? To please me, to be what you thought I wanted?"

She nodded.

"Gretel, look at me." She looked up from the pot. "You are perfect."

She finished brewing his potion and refilled the vials. "Here."

He took them, they did smell different; she'd been right all along.

"Next time let me show you how to make it," she scolded and got back into the bed.

"Keep some food down and I will," he said and sat beside her.

They looked into each others eyes, her browns into his blues, "I'll try."

 **And you keep telling me.**

Augsburg was not welcoming but it didn't matter they were a team again. The uneasiness of the last two years had been laid to rest.

She head-butted the sheriff and the man behind her moved to threaten her and Hansel instantly reacted with his gun pointed at the man's head. "Don't. Just don't."

Gretel introduced her brother and herself then met with the mayor. They met Ben, a fan who annoyed Hansel greatly but amused Gretel equally. They were offered a room away from the tavern, they took it gratefully; they'd been traveling for some time.

"I'm getting a drink." He said leaving her for the night.

She nodded and put on her nightshirt and went to sleep. Throughout the night her sleep was punctuated by the nightmares of their childhood. Her sleep was usually fits and start anyway, she was used to their past popping up once in a while, this was especially true when she was feeling lonely but she was used to it by now.

But despite the nightmares being steady companions for years these felt different for some reason, she'd tell Hansel as soon as he returned, Gretel doubted she'd be getting much sleep anyway. Despite the nightmares, she did eventually drift off but it wasn't restful sleep and she was awoken by a night terror that had her shaking in its aftermath, which hadn't happened in years.

Unlike the usual ones, these terrors had been about her illness. Something she'd fought once upon a time and that had taken so much time to recover from while learning to put aside who she could never be and love who she really was.

Gretel was so unsettled that without thinking reached for Hansel along the floor, hoping he'd returned from the tavern early and not left her for the night. She gave a sigh of relief as she found his hand and he instantly gripped hers, woke up and pulled her arm closer to him.

"What is it?" He asked groggy with sleep.

"I don't know. I had a nightmare and it was... There is something about this place."

"Morning we'll go hunting," he muttered, let go of her hand and rolled under the bed.

She sighed, got up and walked to the window. She wrapped her arms around herself but it did nothing to ward off the chill. She needed warmth and looked longingly at Hansel's back but knew that was not an option.

No, their days of that were over, he was careful not to touch her unless it was necessary, fearing they'd be tempted to fall into old habits. She'd gone along with it fearful she'd lose him all together if she pushed for more. No, she would have to fend for herself tonight.

She rubbed her belly and tried not to be sick. "Something is coming. I can feel it."

 **Telling me that you'll be sweet.**

They hunted as promised, captured a Horned witch and found out about the Blood moon ritual. Hansel went after the girl before Gretel could assist him and she was left to fight an evil redheaded one, who introduced herself as Muriel.

She was knocked out and rescued by Ben, who told her that Hansel had been dragged into the woods. He was sweet kid and she was grateful he wanted to help, but she didn't have time to keep an eye on him while she looked for Hansel and tried to find a way to stop the ritual and save the children.

" _We protect each other."_

" _Always find each other."_

" _Never separate unless the other is dead."_

They agreed long ago to live and die by those rules.

 **And you'll never want to leave my side.**

It should have never happened. She should have never let Hansel go on without her but they had no idea how many enemies they had made, had no clue.

And yet as the blows connected with her face, she couldn't help but be relieved that Hansel wasn't here to see these men hit her. He'd kill them all then never let her do anything on her own ever again.

She managed to kick one in the leg with enough force to snap it and bring him down, three to go. She spit her blood onto the sheriff's face, "is that all you got?"

It wasn't but she absorbed the blow to the stomach and took the opportunity to pick up a rock while she was on the ground and broke one of the henchman's faces with it, two to go. "We can do this all day," she said winded but determined to keep going.

Then Edward came and killed the other two. She felt herself being carried away but she couldn't black out. Not now. She had to find Hansel.

"Please…"Edward stared down at her and began walking deeper into the forest. "Need to find my brother," she gasped out, Edward nodded and Gretel passed out.

"GRETEL!"

She awoke at the edge of a riverbank with Hansel gently cleaning the blood off her face, "who did this?"

"I'm okay."

"Who did this?" he growled.

"I'm fine," she replied gripping his hand.

He pressed his forehead to hers. "I'm sorry, I should have been there."

 **As long as I don't break these.**

She grimaced and lifted her head looking around for Edward, instead she noticed the woman they had saved when they'd first come to town, her name escaped Gretel. She was getting dressed and from her wet hair and rumpled clothing, she'd been swimming.

She glanced at Hansel and noticed his equally rumpled clothes, mostly dry hair and guilty expression, "I guess I know why you weren't." Gretel stood and ignored Hansel's helping hand when she stumbled. "We need to get our things from town and start searching for the missing children before nightfall."

The woman said something to Hansel but Gretel didn't bother to wait to hear her or see if they were following. She just continued down the path she'd been originally going when she'd been ambushed by the sheriff and his men.

"Her name is Mina; the spring is full of healing waters," Hansel explained catching up to her.

"I'm sure it is."

"She helped me. I was dangling from a tree-"

"What is this place?" Gretel interrupted him and stepped past the trees and into a clearing that held a single abandoned home.

"I don't know."

 **Promises, and they still feel all so wasted on myself.**

It turned out to be their childhood home and it was full of lies.

Muriel found them, told them a nightmarish bedtime story and Hansel and Gretel finally got to hear about their parents, the beloved parents that had lied to them about so many things.

They lied about witches. Lied about why their father was leaving them, lied about Gretel and her mother.

Too many revelations, too many things to process after her Hansel was killed and she was taken to have her heart pulled out. Though if she was honest with herself, there wasn't too much of it left with him gone. All the promises she'd made over the years had been for nothing.

 **Promises, and they still feel all so wasted on myself.**

Gretel watched with detached curiosity as Muriel spoke to her sisters about the grand day that would make them fire proof. They tightened the ropes and she hung from them putting strain on her already aching shoulders.

Muriel seeing her broken, decided to deliver the killing blow. "I've heard rumors about the two of you, are they true?"

"Who told you that, one of your crazy witches before we torched them."

She thought of Hansel, thought of him dying alone without any comfort and knew that she would be dying the same way.

"I'm genuinely curious about how long the famous siblings have been screwing each other. Does it bother you that you're not his one and only?

"You know nothing about us."

"Ooh, I hit a nerve. Don't worry I'm sure he was thinking of you when he was having that other witch in the woods."

Gretel spit at her and Muriel backhanded her. "You're so depraved yet have the gall to pass judgment on us?"

"When I get free, I'll kill you and dance on your fucking body."

Muriel gripped Gretel's hair and pulled her closer, "I'll let you in on a little secret." Muriel leaned in and despite her best effort, Gretel was unable to shut out the words. "He was picked up by your stupid father as a babe. You and he are not flesh and blood. So if you were in love with that dead hunter, you had nothing to be ashamed of, nothing. You are not kin."

"You're lying." Gretel said quietly.

"Why would I lie so close to your death? Too bad you won't be able to tell your dear lover that, maybe in the next life."

"Go to hell, bitch." Gretel snarled.

Muriel cackled and slammed her fist into Gretel's face knocking her into blissful darkness.

The screaming and running roused her and only then did Gretel realize that someone was destroying witches before her very eyes. She looked up, saw him step out and kill the creature before him.

"HANSEL!"

He looked at her, grinned and she came to life. She stood up painfully but with new determination. She yanked at the bonds on her arms and one came loose just as Edward ripped the other one and he was pushed over the ledge.

They killed like never before, they killed as an extension of each other. Once most of the witches were dead, she gave him a quick nod then turned and ran off.

"Where are you going?"

"I have to get Edward," she yelled.

"Who the fuck is Edward?" He shouted back.

 **Promises, and they still feel all so wasted on myself.**

She was still gone and Muriel was getting away. Ben and Mina urged him on and as they ran, Hansel hoped Gretel found whomever the fuck Edward was soon. He certainly hoped the guy was worth it especially once he realized where Muriel had led them. "You have to be fucking kidding me."

"Is that…"Ben began to ask.

"Yeah, one piece of advice." Ben leaned in eagerly. "Don't eat the fucking candy."

Muriel laid the trap and they sprung it, not surprising, he'd always been the more impulsive sibling. Ben was injured, Mina was killed and Hansel was forced to endure their childhood trauma all on his own all because Gretel was chasing after some guy.

It was his own fault, he should have told her long ago, how much she meant to him. For a moment he wished Gretel were here, he was outmatched without her but if he could take the witch with him, then Gretel would be safe forever and that was worth his life.

She arrived at the house and echoed Hansel, "you have got to be fucking kidding me."

She rushed past the fallen Mina, and thanked her for saving him twice, then ran in to join him.

"Hansel!"

"Gretel!"

They fought again, same as before. United like two sides of a coin, two pieces of a legacy that existed to defend the weak and destroy the darkness that would exploit it. Muriel is killed with the same oven that started their career.

They laid on the floor, gasping for breath, covered in gore, hurt but alive and together.

"You look like shit," he said grinning.

"You do too,"she replied smiling.

 **Promises, and they still feel all so wasted on myself.**

They delivered the witch, got paid and left the town with not one but two new friends. They've been on the road for two days, Muriel's information sits in her mind, like a stone, blocking every thought but the ones that centered on Hansel and what they could be.

The night is dark and she convinced Edward to patrol and Ben to go with him. She needs to talk to Hansel alone, needs to tell him the good news. He's sits in front of their makeshift camp, the fire illuminating his handsome features.

"Hansel?" She approached cautiously, suddenly worried that he might have moved on, that he hasn't been longing for her as she's been longing for him.

He looks behind her, "where are Ben and Edward?"

"Patrolling."

"Why?"

"Cause I told them to."

"Why?" He asks suspiciously.

"I needed to talk to you, in private."

"Gretel, what's going on?"

"Do you believe that I am a good witch?"

"Yes?"

"Because of Mina or because it's me."

"Because it's you. What's gotten into you tonight?"

Gretel pulled out Muriel's wand and showed it to him, "it's glowing. I can use it."

"When the fuck you get that?"

"After we killed her. I wasn't gonna take it but...I did."

"Why?" He asked.

"Everything we thought before was a lie-"

He grabbed her hands and she dropped the wand, "you don't need that stupid thing, you don't have to be anything else, nothing has to change, you're perfect as you are."

She looks up at him and without a thought kisses him.

He releases her instantaneously, "we agreed that was in the past."

"Hansel, it's different now," she says.

"You being a witch doesn't change the fact that you are my sister."

"But that's what I've been trying to tell you, Muriel told me."

He grabs her shoulders and shakes her, "I don't want to hear anymore about that bitch. It's over Gretel and if you insist on pursuing this," he gestures to them, "I'll have no choice but to leave."

"You promised you wouldn't."

"You have Edward and Ben, you don't need me." He says it almost desperately and Gretel backs away from him, understanding stealing across her face.

"You don't love me anymore."

"Of course I love you, just not like that," he says.

"Look me in the eye and say it. Say you don't want me."

"I don't want you Gretel, not like that. I desire your companionship as my sister and I'll stay as long as my role in your life is strictly brotherly."

She nods, "I promise never to bring this up again."

He smiles but it crumbles the moment she leaves his sight. It will be weeks before they are on easy speaking terms and he'll never forget the night he heard her cry in the forest for as long as he lives.

It doesn't take long before Hansel realizes that Ben likes Gretel, and that Gretel is not indifferent to him, or that Edward is also in love with her. Now there are two more to deal with among the already large number of suitors, his sister is accumulating.

Hansel knows that he'll be able to deal with it until Ben proves his worth.

Hansel wants to approve of the way Ben treats his sister. Only a man who treated her like an equal would be worthy of her. He is supposed to be glad that Gretel is seeing someone else in that light. Its what Hansel had hoped for, at least that's what he'd been telling himself for the last eight years, but he has discovered that its also untrue.

He had told Gretel it was what had to happen and now he just hated himself for wanting to stop it, for wanting her back when she was finally letting him go.

He wishes he could go back to that night before the fire and kiss her back, good and hard. That he could go back and tell her he can't live without her and show her with soft caresses that would make her sigh his name and forget any others.

Promises, and they still feel all so wasted on myself.

He didn't want to react as he saw the grown up and filled out version of Ben swimming with his scantily clad sister. He didn't want to see Ben gently slide a hand alongside the soft skin of her shoulders while his Gretel playfully wrapped her arms around his.

He hadn't been sure what he'd find when he first knew that they had gone to the nearest stream alone but he certainly hadn't wanted it to be this.

They had started to go as a group whenever they had a particularly horrible kill and the last one had been pretty bad. It had taken three weeks for Hansel to get out of the bed he'd been confined to and in that time Ben and Gretel had gotten close, much too close.

Edward had taken care of him but only because Gretel asked and after the second week. When the ogre confirmed Hansel's suspicions of who Gretel was spending her time with, he was unsure who was more miserable, he or Edward.

He turned away from the scene and went back to their camp, hands fisted and eyes desperately blinking away the sudden moisture in his eyes.

He gulped a lungful of air trying to quell the sheer panic that she was going to leave him soon, that she would eventually leave with Ben and if not with him then another would eventually take her heart, it was inevitable.

There could be a Gretel without a Hansel but not a Hansel without a Gretel.

They arrived at another village and thankfully another tavern. He tried to approach one of the women but his charm had been killed the moment he's spied Gretel with Ben that morning and it was not coming back.

He made his way to his room, belly full of drink and he stumbled in the darkness but didn't bother to light the lamp. It wouldn't change anything, the room would still be empty of her and Hansel couldn't bear to sleep in the cold bed alone much less see it.

He threw his coat on a chair, kicked off his shoes and bunched up the rest of his clothes to use as a pillow. He curled up on the wooden floor and was just about to close his eyes when a lamp was held above him, revealing a pair of familiar legs.

"I know you don't mind the floor but the bed is much nicer."

"Why are you here?"

She extended her hand and just like before he took it. "You're here."

"Ben?"

"He's not what I want. I tried."

"We made promises."

She shrugged her shoulders, "I can't keep that promise. He isn't you. He will never be you. No one will ever be you."

His blue eyes scanned her pretty face and this time he led her to the bed, "she wasn't you either, none of them were."

She sat beside him, "then let's stop making promises that are wasted on us. We aren't kin, Hansel. We no longer have anything to be ashamed of. I can love you as I always have, you can love me, if you still do."

"I had never stopped."

"I thought..."

"I tried but I never could get over you."

"No more hiding?"

"You are certain we aren't related, I could bare the shame but I would never want you to ever feel that way about us," he said.

Her brown eyes scanned his fair hair and the features that didn't match her own, "fairly but we can make sure."

He kissed and held her close, "you say it is so, that's enough for me."

Years later when Ben and Edward had gone their separate ways and they were in another no name town, alone once more, they reflected on their life.

"Its beautiful," she said curling against his side and he couldn't help but agree.


End file.
